Tuesday, July 19, 2011

California Mortgage Defaults Fall to 4-Year Low

Following some relatively positive news about June home sales in California comes this additional positive news about the California real estate market:

DQ News -- "The number of California homes that went into foreclosure fell to a four-year low last quarter, the result of a more stable housing market as well as policy changes in the mortgage servicing industry. A total of 56,633 Notices of Default (NoDs) were recorded at county recorders offices during the April-to-June period. That was down 17.0 percent from 68,239 for the prior quarter, and down 19.2 percent from 70,051 in second-quarter 2010 (see chart above). Last quarter's activity was the lowest for any quarter since 53,493 NoDs were recorded in the second quarter of 2007. It was well below half the record 135,431 default notices recorded in the first quarter of 2009."

DQ President John Walsh said "A lot of theories are being floated as to why the numbers are down. Bank policy changes. Legal challenges. Politics. Holding back temporarily so as not to flood the market. The fact of the matter is that no one really knows, outside of lending and servicing industry insiders. One thing is certain: Homeowner distress spreads fastest when home price declines are steepest. And it now appears likely that, barring some new economic shock, the worst of the price declines are behind us."

5 Comments:

DQ President John Walsh said "A lot of theories are being floated as to why the numbers are down. Bank policy changes. Legal challenges. Politics. Holding back temporarily so as not to flood the market. The fact of the matter is that NO ONE REALLY KNOWS, outside of lending and servicing industry insiders....

What we do know is that the US government is technically bankrupt by any reasonable accounting measure and the State of California is worse. How long till homeowners start tax riots (as they did in the 1930s) and how long does the shortage of revenues force the feds to legalize drug use so that it can be taxed?

BTW, there was one nation that neatly dodged the global housing bubble: Japan.

House prices in Japan fell all through the 2000s, and they did also in the 1990s.

The Bank of Japan has whooped inflation, and the yen is very strong, doubling against the dollar in the last 20 years. In fact, they have had declining asset values of all kinds for a generation--stocks are off 80 percent from peaks, and still going down.

Well, the anal gnomes at the Japan Central Bank are happy, even if businesses, investors and employees of Japan are not.

No it isn't. Real prices are still in decline and not even close to a bottom. I suspect that the average California home is on its way to less than 100 ounces of gold and likely lower.

If Bernanke can just get aggressive, we could see a long, long rally, nationally and globally.

You must be an investor in hard assets. That is exactly what one who is long gold, silver, energy, and other commodities would be dreaming of as a way to get very, very rich. Have Bernanke destroy the USD and the real economy by resorting to inflation.